I am making seven posts between my dad’s birthday and Father’s day. This year Terence Roy Waterfield would have been 90. We lost him when he was 78. It takes a long time to process losing a loved one.
Gate Two is about Dad’s flat, though the holding image here would suggest the seashore. When I worked on the project in the outdoors Dad’s flat became very vibrant to me in the outdoor space. I was able to re-create it with the discarded objects I found along the seashore: his table, his milk bottle, the way he sat watching the telly (for me the vista out to sea). When I developed the work as a walking performance, one stopping place was a kitchen/lounge next to the garden where I made Gate One. I played the film of the seashore work on the telly and worked with his personal objects doing the activities I would find him doing whenever I visited his flat. At this gate I am working with his personal domestic objects and the music he loved. I am also exploring dreaming and dying. In amongst this are elements of harbours, navigation and the sense of his solitary existence in the latter days of his life.